


Art Class

by feelingeloquent



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Cosette POV, Cosette is an artist, F/F, Kid fic?, Kinda?, Marius is mentioned, Mild Angst, Pining, Poetry, Possibly Unrequited Love, art class, artist!cosette, i just really like this poem ok, theyre growing up together, this is based off of art class by rhiannon mcgavin, this might be kinda sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 13:15:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15950108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feelingeloquent/pseuds/feelingeloquent
Summary: Cosette has loved art since she was little. She's also loved Eponine for about as long.This is based off of the poem Art Class by Rhiannon McGavin. Please check it out!





	Art Class

**Author's Note:**

> so this is based off of Art Class by Rhiannon McGavin. its a really, really breathtaking poem and I would recommend watching that before reading this. you don't have to, but the poem is really quite lovely. first time writing eposette. hope you enjoy!

"Hi! I'm Éponine! What's your name? Wow!! That's so pretty! So are you!"

 

Cosette's fingers, dripping with purple paint, reached out to touch the girl's nose. A smudge of red was smeared on her cheek, and the butterfly painting on the table below lay forgotten. This girl was much more interesting than fingerpainting.

 

Her paint-covered fingers collided with the new girl's nose, purple staining her face. They both started giggling, and Cosette threw her arms around the girl.

 

"I'm Cosette!"

 

~~~

 

A 7th grade textbook lay on the table in front of her. It was open to a page on female anatomy, and Cosette was trying to create an anatomically correct sketch on the paper next to it. It's just... the model on the page was so distracting. Why was it so distracting? She found herself wondering if that was why she always ended up dressing quickly and hightailing it out of the locker room. Girls were just so... mesmerizing.

 

The art, again, lay forgotten on the table below.

 

~~~

 

Éponine was staring at the painting in front of her. Yes, the painting was pretty, but Cosette thought Éponine was much prettier. But, they were in a museum. Cosette couldn't touch the art in front of her, and she couldn't touch the painting either.

 

~~~

 

Éponine smelled like cookies. It was her lotion; Cosette had the same brand, but it smelled better on her. The lotion smelled something like the cafes they went to on weekends, the cafes that made Cosette feel like an old painter, like a painter in one of the books Éponine had on the Renaissance.

 

~~~

 

Éponine sat next to Cosette in art class. Whenever Cosette brought paint in from home, the colors were so dark, but looking at Éponine made her want to throw the paints into the ocean. Éponine made her want to take an eye dropper to the sunflowers outside her window, the apples in the trees, the roses on her windowsill, the sea foam on the beach, the sea foam that Aphrodite was birthed from, the seam foam that Éponine herself must have been birthed from because it's not humanly possible to look that pretty.

 

The lines Cosette drew weren't straight anymore but she didn't care, because Éponine's hair was always,  _always_ curly.

 

~~~

 

A boy called her weird one day. It was freshman year. Éponine didn't mind, she was always used to being the outcast, but Cosette wanted to comfort her, wanted to hold her, wanted to tell her of the hours spent drawing and erasing and crumpling. Wanted to tell her that she'd spent a lifetime trying to recreate the inferno in her eyes, but she couldn't. She couldn't say that, because if she did, Éponine would know she'd been staring. 

 

You're not supposed to look at your best friend like that.

 

~~~  
  


Their art teacher told them that the color maker Diesbach tried to make the perfect red and ended up creating ultramarine. The addition of animal blood created blue, both shades worth more than anything modern money could buy. Cosette found herself dreaming of vermilion Shakespeare hardbacks, sunsets dripping in garnet, the lipstick Éponine wore, the same lipstick stained on Cosette's cheek, the exact shade of scarlet that Éponine blushed in. Cosette would've bled to capture that shade on canvas.

 

While Cosette's mind was stained with red, her days were substituted with blue. The sky the same hue as the flowers at Éponine's feet, the navy blue of the skirts the young girls they passed on the way home wore, the skirts that hid clasped hands and -- the sunflower petals in Éponine's hair. The sunflower petals in Éponine's hair that made Cosette's mind echo with whispers of  _she loves me... she loves me... she loves me..._

 

_~~~_

 

But their art teacher didn't tell them that the isolation of cyanide was directly linked to the creation of prussian blue. The cyanide that Cosette could  _feel_ in  her lungs, its apple seeds and the feeling of high school gym floorboards falling away when she saw Éponine dancing with boys, boys who Cosette would never be, boys who could never feel the same way about Éponine as Cosette did, boys who were grubby and loud and mean and  _why would Éponine want to dance with those boys?_

 

Cosette found herself looking at the friendship bracelet on her wrist, the one that matched identically to the one wrapped around Éponine's arm, and remembered all of a sudden why she had so vehemently refused a promise ring. Rings meant promises, and Cosette didn't know if she could bear having a ring that only meant friendship. Rings meant weddings, and Cosette couldn't bear sharing one with Éponine as friends. Rings meant promises, and Cosette didn't think she could keep the promise of being strictly friends. No, bracelets were much better. 

 

She thought back to her diaries, her sketchbooks filled to the brim with girls,  _with Éponine_ , like a pickpocket sketching the Hope Diamond, like a peasant child gazing at the gates of the palace. As an urchin, Cosette's coats would've been lined with stolen glaces and half-hidden smiles because she didn't have a partner in crime to keep her warm.

 

~~~

 

She knew. She knew, deep down, why she was drawn to certain women she met, like the teacher's assistant in AP Chem, a friendly college Junior who came to class with smudged mascara and cherry eyes every time her lab partner got a new boyfriend. Or the history professor and her roommate of fifteen years, the very same roommate who brought the teachers coffee and a smile every day since the beginning of classes.

 

Why would Éponine want to dance with those boys? Who cared about boys? Cosette just wanted to fade into the pages of a book, somewhere where she wouldn't have to look at the expression on Éponine's face when she danced with Marius Pontmercy. Maybe someone in another time would pick up that book. Maybe someone in another time would remember her.

 

~~~

 

It was at that time that she found herself thinking of her kindergarten classroom. The days when everything seemed so bright, when fingerpainting was the most exciting thing a day could hold. She wanted that. She wanted to mix every color of the rainbow until she got the exact shade of Éponine's Monet shoulder freckles, back in the days when you passed out a valentine to every kid in class.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> i have no idea if that was good its just been sitting in my drafts for a while so :/. leave a comment if you'd like to! i l o v e reading them. hmu on tumblr @cthlulu


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